“Also, I should not say Fitzgerald “probably does feel this happened”.”

Or as with most people here….they hoped it did happen.

You’re wrong about me being wrong :-) Just because Fitzgerald didn’t charge anyone with outing a covert agent doesn’t mean it didn’t happen or that he doesn’t believe it happened. His comments during and before the case indicate that he probably does feel this happened. The fact that no one was charged with outing Plame rather means that he didn’t think there was enough evidence to convince a jury of that fact. Government prosecuters have to weigh their odds of conviction against the public cost of a court case to determine whether it is worth prosecuting someone of a crime. It seems fairly obvious that Fitzgerald was very close to charging Karl Rove with similar charges to Lewis Libby. Karl managed to produce enough doubt by coming forward “on his own” (thank you Vivica Novak) to make Fitzgerald doubt his ability to convince a jury beyond reasonable doubt.

You’re using faulty logic here. Just because something can’t be proved does not mean the opposite is true.

Leave it to the GOP when they are the controlling party to mess things up and then turn around when the DEMS take over and say “oh they are bad – they are unpatriotic and going to raise your taxes (whisper – to pay for the record deficite we ran up using “reaganomics” and the war we are losing – whisper)

Comment by barrelhse

It was just a figure of speech, sorry.

Yes, I Want the United States to Lose
Send me to Guantanamo right now. I’m packed and ready to go.

It’s time for the Patrick Henry response.

Alrighty, then.

I’ve had it with what appears to be the most popular latest smear being used by the warmongers — although now that I think about it, this smear has been widely used ever since our latest war of aggression began. That smear, uttered by Limbaugh, every other rightwing hack you can name, and every defender of the ongoing slaughter in Iraq, runs along these lines, and is now hurled at anyone who dares to oppose the latest insanity, the troop “surge” in Iraq:
Why won’t you even give it a chance? Don’t you want us to win — or do you actually want us to lose? Is that how much you hate Bush, and how much you hate America? Or don’t you think the Iraqis deserve freedom? Do you think they’re lesser human beings than we are? Are you really just a racist?
Hmm. That’s a whole bunch of smears, isn’t it?

Let’s put the most important issue first. In the end, this is the only one that matters:

Iraq did not attack us.

Iraq did not constitute a serious threat to the United States.

Both points were unequivocally and indisputably clear before the first American soldier set foot in Iraq.

There is only one conclusion: this was a war of blatant aggression, launched against what our leaders knew to be a third- or fourth-rate power. It had nothing to do with national defense, and it has exponentially increased the threats to our country. Moreover, it is entirely clear that our leaders lied about their reasons for going to war.

“Victory,” as Bush originally defined it, would be a “democratic” Iraq — although not “democratic” to the extent that Iraqis might elect leaders we strongly disapproved of and/or who were not sufficiently pro-American — an Iraq that was self-sustaining and capable of defending itself. This fantasy rests on the indefensible notion that “everyone wants what we want” — which was one of the notions that led to the disaster of Vietnam, as well as to the disaster of Iraq. As Barbara Tuchman stated the point:
Americans were always talking about freedom from Communism, whereas the freedom that the mass of Vietnamese wanted was freedom from their exploiters, both French and indigenous. The assumption that humanity at large shared the democratic Western idea of freedom was an American delusion. “The freedom we cherish and defend in Europe,” stated President Eisenhower on taking office, “is no different than the freedom that is imperiled in Asia.” He was mistaken. Humanity may have common ground, but needs and aspirations vary according to circumstances.
And even if many Iraqis did want what we want, the notion of quickly transplanting anything even close to our form of governance still remains indefensible: it flies in the face of history, culture, and the recognition that the history and culture of any country is critically relevant to what is possible there. There is nothing remotely racist in this observation, which history has demonstrated countless times. It is simply a recognition that history and culture matter and that, in numerous critical ways, they are determinative. Our particular form of government arose in a specific place, at a specific time, in a particular historical context, and amid very particular circumstances. In addition, there was nothing preordained about the American Revolution and the founding of the United States. Had Britain acted differently in key ways, we might never have fought a war of independence.

But speaking of racism, who actually are the racists here? Not me (or Barbara Tuchman, I dare say) — but perhaps the label might fit the American military commander who said:
“You have to understand the Arab mind,” Capt. Todd Brown, a company commander with the Fourth Infantry Division, said as he stood outside the gates of Abu Hishma. “The only thing they understand is force — force, pride and saving face.”
This reveals the operation of one of the key mechanisms involved: projection. The advocates of this disaster threw insults and smears at anyone who dared challenge their nonsensical, insupportable plans, insults and smears that were supported by precisely nothing. But when their immoral and criminal occupation doesn’t lead to anything even beginning to approach their propaganda-induced fantasies, they themselves blame the Iraqis (and Arabs and Muslims generally) — and reveal themselves to have been the racists all along.

Our governing elites pride themselves on the fact that they are not obliged to know anything at all about the countries where they decide to meddle, and the United States has been interfering in very major ways in the Middle East since the end of World War II. More generally, the West has been a constant presence in the Middle East since World War I, and periodically for centuries before that. And our “Sacred Ignorance” led to one entirely predictable result — a result that many of us opposed to this monstrous war did in fact predict before the nauseatingly-named “Shock and Awe” campaign began. We were doomed to lose before even one American soldier entered Iraq — because we didn’t have the vaguest idea what we were doing. We are the “city on a hill.” We are the “last best hope of mankind.” Everyone wants to be just like us. We don’t need to know anything about anyone else, or about any other country on earth. We did Iraq a favor by invading and occupying it — just as we did a similar favor in the war with Mexico in the mid-nineteenth century:
Perhaps to dignify the nakedness of Polk’s land lust, the American citizenry had got itself whipped into an idealistic frenzy, believing with an almost religious assurance that its republican form of government and its constitutional freedoms should extend to the benighted reaches of the continent then held by Mexico, which, with its feudal customs and Popish superstitions, stood squarely in the way of Progress. To conquer Mexico, in other words, would be to do it a favor.
In fact, Bush said precisely this once, in his 60 Minutes interview:
PELLEY: Do you think you owe the Iraqi people an apology for not doing a better job?

BUSH: That we didn’t do a better job or they didn’t do a better job?

PELLEY: Well, that the United States did not do a better job in providing security after the invasion.

BUSH: Not at all. I am proud of the efforts we did. We liberated that country from a tyrant. I think the Iraqi people owe the American people a huge debt of gratitude, and I believe most Iraqis express that. I mean, the people understand that we’ve endured great sacrifice to help them. That’s the problem here in America. They wonder whether or not there is a gratitude level that’s significant enough in Iraq.
Well, of course. Every decent American “wonder[s] whether or not there is a gratitude level that’s significant enough in Iraq” — immense gratitude for destroying their entire country, and murdering over half a million innocent citizens. I suppose that means I am definitely not a decent American.

So let’s be completely clear, and restate it once more for emphasis. We invaded and occupied a country that hadn’t attacked us, and that was no threat to us. Our government has murdered more than half a million innocent Iraqis — and destroyed an entire nation. Our government has also murdered and maimed tens of thousands of Americans.

To be entirely accurate and to state what should not require identification, but which we must state given the extraordinarily corrupt atmosphere of our national debate, it’s obviously not that I or anyone else “wants us to lose.” The smear is entirely invalid at its foundation, because we never could “win.” Our invasion was profoundly immoral from its very first moment. In any case, what I want doesn’t matter a damn. Our catastrophic “mission” in Iraq was doomed before it began. We lost four years ago. It would require a miracle for us to achieve any sort of “success,” and for us to “win.” Miracles of that kind and on that scale do not occur in this world, nor have they ever occurred in history. Our leaders simply refuse to acknowledge that we’ve lost. So many more people will die and be horribly maimed.

But in the moral sense — in the sense of destroying human life with no justification whatsoever — we certainly deserve to lose. It would only be just, and it would be minimal justice at that. We have committed a monstrous, unforgivable war crime, indeed a countless number of war crimes. If you care at all about the sanctity of an individual human life, and if you still give a damn, that should matter to you. Nothing in the world is more important.

So, yes, in the sense I have described, I want us to lose. We already have. There is no forgiveness for what we have done. Do I want American soldiers to die? Of course not. I never wanted them to be sent to Iraq in the first place. If we had never begun this catastrophe, those who have died would be alive today — as would over half a million Iraqis.

One might hope that we’ve learned something from our indecent and immoral acts, and that we will be more careful in our future actions. In a tragedy beyond measure, it is already entirely clear that we have learned absolutely nothing — just as we learned nothing from Vietnam. All of the forces that led to more than a century of unending war are still in place. We have learned nothing.

Well. Someone had to say it. So I just did.

I’m ready for Guantanamo now. I’d like to say goodbye to some friends and spend time with my cats before I leave. You can pick me up in the morning.

To paraphrase (hopefully true to what you are trying to convey), the basic gist of your argument is that there always has been and always will be a stronger entity and a weaker entity and that the stronger entity will always exploit the weaker entity.

As much as we hate to admit it, a lot of good comes out of even the worst wars. I’m certainly not condoning the Nazi party, but they did make considerable gains and contributions in human anatomy, altitude sickness, hypothermia and jet propulsion. I guess my beef is how you seem to be defining “stronger” and “weaker”.

Applying your definition of the two and using your logic, then it is OK if a man beats his wife (because he is stronger), or a stranger rapes your wife, daughter or sister (because the rapist is stronger), or hey… why don’t you tell me where you live because I am sure that there are a few things that I’de like to steal from your house – things that you earned through an honest living and hard work.

Obviously you can not say that being “stronger” is the same as being “morally right”, which is where you seem to be going.

Personally, I think the stronger of two men (or women) is the one who communicates his feelings of anger and hurt to his spouse (or partner) through words rather than his closed fist.

To accurately define “strong” you have to look at a civilizations values. The Aztecs, Mayans, Aborigines and ALL native peoples were not weak because another group came in and slaughtered them. Though small in numbers compared to the past, even to this day, there cultures go back thousands of years beyond “modern” man’s. The reason why most native cultures fell to the knife, sword or gun is that they, as a culture, valued a path of spiritual insight, rather than the commercial (ie: the person with the most “stuff” is the strongest) cultures of the Spanish, English etc etc. This is not to say that fighting did not exist within these native cultures. Certainly it did. But you can’t make the comparison that “modern culture” is the stronger of the two since they have eradicated most of the indigenous cultures and are therefore morally right, deserving to be in power over native peoples.

Sure, America is the world superpower. There is no debate about our dominance. But I feel that with that title we have an even greater responsibility to solve problems through communication rather than throwing the punch as the first option when another country disagrees with our interests. Because of Bush’s Iraq, no wonder most of the world now sees America as more of a bully than a country to be admired with a political/economical system to be modeled from.

Can ALL problems be solved through communication? No.

Your right, Bush didn’t start the Iraq war. Saddam did because the only reason GW has given justifying the war that has not turned out to be a lie is “after all this is a man who tried to kill my father”. (sarcasm)

Now there is a thing called “trade” which civilizations (CIVIL-izations) have been taking part of peacefully for thousands of years so, no, NOT EVERYTHING has been acquired through rape and plunder as you suggest. Sometimes, we even make things ourselves rather than take it from someone else at gunpoint.

I guess it is the same old story… brains vs. brawn. The cave dwellers smart enough to run from the T-rex rather than fight it armed only with a stick, or smart enough avoid the quicksand or tarpits because they have seen what could happen to them through experiences of others are the cave dwellers that survived to pass on their genes. That’s called “evolution” and through successful evolution, we are ensuring our survival as a species and surviving is what it is all about. No matter how you cut it, brains still wins.

To paraphrase Baby Jane: “But cha are, Blanche, ya are…!”

Sponge-Cake – New talking points won’t change old stories.

Comment by valiant venus — March 6, 2007 @ 4:32 pm

And facts won’t wake you up to the truth dipsh!t.

Your old, tired, busted, debunked talking point is just as invalid now as it was then.

FITZGERALD: I would say this: I do not expect to file any further charges. Basically, the investigation was inactive prior to the trial. I would not expect to see any further charges filed. We’re all going back to our day jobs.

If information comes to light or new information comes to us that would warrant us taking some action, we’ll, of course, do that. But I would not create the expectation that any of us will be doing further investigation at this point. We see the investigation as inactive.

-GW Bush-

Had he and others in the White House complied with Mr. Bush’s order to “fully cooperate” with the investigation, there might have been no obstruction and we might know whether Ms. Plame’s outing violated federal statutes or the confidentiality agreements signed by senior White House staff.

Everyone with a driver’s license knows that if six cars speed past the Highway Patrol at twice the speed limit, six drivers are violating the law. When the patrolman stops and tickets one, it’s no defense for the driver to ask, “What about all those other guys?”

Mr. Fitzgerald has no obligation to prove who outed Ms. Plame or who else might have more carefully lied to cover it up. He did his job by proving that Mr. Libby committed four felonies. Mr. Libby should not pass Go or collect two hundred dollars. He should go to jail.

And, just like anyone that has 2 brainscells [sic] knows, NR is a biased rag.

At least you recognise your limitations.

Cheers,

Hey,spin takes time.